Jacob's Odyssey (The Berne Project Book 1)

by Melrose, Russ

  I thought about spending the night behind the cash register and simply waiting for them to leave. But what if they lingered around for several days? There was no way to tell how long they might hang around and I hadn't packed any food. The sink in the bathroom would have running water, but it would be contaminated. And I doubted there was any food around. Then there was the back door. If one of them wandered around back and started pushing against the door till it opened, I'd be trapped. But as much as I hated the idea of moving an inch from the safety of my position, I didn't see cowering behind the counter as much of an option. I had to get a lock pick set and I had to get it now.

  I could hear them clearly now; their urgent, strident moans nearly drowning out the sound of the rain. I stood up behind the counter and waited for them. I didn't have long to wait. A half-dozen of them shuffled into view, their focus directed down the street, mesmerized by the insistent blaring of the alarm. While I couldn't see them clearly, one of the infected clearly stood out from the others. He was at the front of the group and he was quite tall. But what was striking about him was the way he walked. He walked with a normal stride as if he weren't infected at all. And for a moment, I thought my mind might be playing tricks on me.

  Soon after, a large group followed, at least twenty of them. And they kept coming. I set the bat down on top of the counter and strode quickly to the front of the shop. Then I began banging my fists as hard as I could on the huge wall of glass to the left of the front door, though with the rain and the alarm and their own moans, I wasn't sure if they'd hear me. But they did. An infected woman stopped in her tracks and slowly inclined her head in my direction. With what had happened earlier with the girl and now with the woman, I knew their auditory sense had to be highly tuned. I banged on the glass a few more times and she began to totter drunkenly toward the shop. When she was within ten feet, she must have sensed my presence amidst the shadows because she suddenly moved with a crazed desperation toward the window. Her gray face was deeply furrowed, shriveled like a plum and her dark eyes had virtually disappeared into their concave sockets. When she arrived at the front of the shop, she moaned excitedly and threw herself into the window with fanatic abandonment. I took a step back. Several other infected broke ranks. They seemed to have a communal understanding that a meal was nearby.

  I tried to be patient, but my chest and stomach were freezing up. I remembered to breathe as they closed in on the front of the store. It was important for them to be focused on the front when the time came for me to break the glass case. I was afraid that if I'd simply broken the case and tried to run, some of them might have gone down the side driveway to the back parking lot. But if they saw me in the front of the shop, that's where their attention would be focused. And that's where they'd try to get to me, and all the others would simply follow suit. And that's exactly what was happening. They were all converging on the shop now, pounding frantically on the window and pressing against each other, desperate to get to me. Their moans were clamorous, like an asylum of madmen without tongues, relentlessly insistent upon being heard. I knew they would never stop coming. In the midst of the onslaught, I did my best to keep focused on my breathing. By now there had to be at least twenty-five or thirty of them at the window and countless others were flocking to the store.

  I ran to the counter and grabbed the bat and in one motion raised it up and brought it down on the glass case with an overwrought intensity. The glass exploded and I felt a searing pain rip across my left cheek. I ignored it and grabbed a tri-fold lock pick set and shoved it in the front pocket of my shorts. I ran around the counter and through the back hallway to the back door. The moans spiraled in intensity after I disappeared from their view. Working quickly, I replaced the bat in the backpack making sure it was somewhat snug but still easy enough to remove, then I slipped the backpack back on and buckled it. I drew the gun from my waistline and chambered a round. I eased the trigger safety lock till it was flush with the trigger and ready to fire. There was no need to worry about noise anymore. I peered out the window and didn't see any infected in the back parking lot. I took a deep breath and opened the door and glanced to my right toward the side driveway but saw nothing. And then I ran like hell.

  The chain link fence wasn't very high and I tossed the gun over and climbed the fence. I dried the Glock off as best I could and put the gun back in the backpack. I stood on the safe side of the fence in the rain and wondered which direction I should go. If I stayed in this neighborhood and tried to find a house to stay in, I'd still be very close to the hordes of infected now roaming 9th East. And that thought made me nervous. To get to another neighborhood, I'd have to cross another street or two and that had risks of its own. It didn't take long for me to make a decision. The sudden sound of shattering glass prompted me to move and I raced toward the gate. They were in the locksmith shop now and it wouldn't take long for them to get to the back door. I opened the gate that led to the front yard and slipped into the shadows of some shrubbery next to the house.

  After a few moments, I heard them push through the back door of the shop and spill into the back parking lot. And then I could hear some of them bumping clumsily into the dumpster and the chain link fence. I was fairly certain they couldn't see me, but I couldn't be sure. I edged slowly along the side of the house and moved toward the front yard, keeping to the shadows. The tenor of their moans remained constant and I grew confident they hadn't seen me. Their moans would have spiked dramatically if they'd caught even a glimpse of me. When I arrived at the front edge of the house, it appeared that 10th East was free of the infected, at least as far as I could tell. And for once, I didn't hesitate. I sped across the street and made my way into the nearest backyard.

  I kept going till I had crossed 11th East. I didn't have any problems with the infected, and I assumed it was because of the shrill, insistent alarm still blaring away down on 9th East. The infected were drawn to the annoying sound as if it were the pied piper of Hamelin.

  I found the home I was looking for on 11th East. Lights were on in the front living room and the picture window curtains were open. It was a brick, ranch style home with a basement. I checked out the windows in the back of the house but couldn't see much of anything. Mostly dark shadows. A thread of light found its way into the kitchen, but that was about it. The rain had now dissipated into a light drizzle as I stood by the back door soaking wet and hesitant. I reasoned that if anyone were still in the house, those lights in the living room wouldn't be on and the home would've been shuttered up, but even my sound rationale couldn't get me to move because the thought of breaking into someone's home, even if they'd left town or had been infected, chafed against my moral core.

  The back door had a knob lock but no dead bolt and for that I was thankful. I tried the door one time to see if it was locked and it was. I rubbed my bruised knuckles as I stood there feeling jittery about breaking into someone's home. And the thought crossed my mind that maybe I should knock softly on the door once to see if anyone was home. But it wasn't a serious thought. I was just stalling. A stinging pain pulsed near the surface of my left cheek and I gingerly brushed the wound with the back of my hand. It hurt like hell and part of me couldn't help but wonder what my face looked like now. I was shaken and a bit of a mess, but at least I was still alive.

  After a few more minutes of stalling, I knelt down by the back door and took the backpack off and removed the bat and set it down next to me. The bat would be for protection. I fished the lock pick set out of my pocket and opened the tri-fold and grabbed a tension wrench and the rake pick. The articles I'd read suggested the rake pick would be the easiest pick for amateurs to learn to use. And I'd probably watched the various how-to-pick-a-lock videos fifty or sixty times, so I felt pretty comfortable about what was supposed to happen. It was quite dark in the backyard and I suddenly wished I'd thought about packing a penlight. But it worked out. I managed to fit the tension wrench in the bottom of the keyhole and remembered to maintain a slight amount o
f tension on the wrench. The wrench would turn and open the lock once the pins were all pushed up. I inserted the rake pick in just above the tension wrench and felt for the pins. I jiggled the rake pick upward again and again. Quite suddenly the alarm stopped and there was just the sound of the rain and the moans. And while I played with the pins, I wondered what a homeowner would do if they knew someone was trying to break into their home. And what if they had a gun? But I knew no one was home here. The tension wrench moved slightly and I kept moving it clockwise just as if I were turning a key to open the door. And then I turned the knob and I was in.

  Chapter 4 – Gabriel and Lucifer

  A fragile and disquieting stillness hovered over the valley. For once I didn't hear the ubiquitous moans drifting through the air. And their absence made for a remarkably quiet morning. I couldn't remember it being this quiet since the crisis began and I didn't trust it. It was an anomaly, a counterfeit calm, like dwelling in the eye of a hurricane. And I knew the eerie silence was nothing more than a temporary reprieve. I found the silence more foreboding than calming.

  I sat on a cement back porch underneath a roof-extended awning and waited. A little over a week had passed since I'd first broken into someone's home, and I'd become quite proficient at it. I'd already laid the gun next to the back door and had taken my backpack off. And I'd set the tension wrench and rake pick in the keyhole. Now all I had to do was wait for the air conditioning to come on.

  The shade on the porch was a welcome relief from the late morning sun. And while it wasn't eleven o'clock yet, the temperature was rising quickly. Quite a change from yesterday's dry wind storm. It had been a bizarre, threatening sort of day. Plenty of roiling clouds along with random thunder and lightning, lots of wind, but not a drop of rain. Today was utterly silent. I was a little surprised the air conditioning unit hadn't switched on yet, and I wondered if it was even working. But I realized none of the other air conditioning units in the neighborhood had switched on either. I was simply being impatient. I would use the hum of air conditioners to mask the tinkering sounds I made whenever I picked a lock. And even though I was fairly certain there weren't any infected in the vicinity, I wasn't about to take the chance of them hearing me when I picked the lock, no matter how far away they might be.

  The winds from yesterday's storm had cleared out the hazy valley air and had left today's sky an incredibly pristine blue. It was the kind of beautiful day that would prompt college students to play hooky and drive up one of the canyons with a six pack or take a ride up to Park City. That was before the virus had turned the world topsy turvy. Alex and I had occasionally played hooky on days like this when we were in college together, usually opting for Park City and a few cold Buds in one of the bars on Main Street. The cooler mountain air was always a nice respite from a hot summer day in the valley, and during the summer months, Park City wasn't overrun with tourists and skiers.

  From the backyard porch, I had a great view of the Wasatch Mountains, especially Mount Olympus. Mount Olympus was the highest peak in the Salt Lake Valley and its upper third was beautifully stubbled with Ponderosa Pine and Douglas-Fir. The mountains were a verdant green this year thanks to a generous snowfall from the past winter. And even in a deteriorating, apocalyptic world, the mountains were still breathtakingly beautiful. I'd always thought the valley was as Edenlike as any place on earth. The mountains had always been the thing I loved most about living in the valley. No matter where you were in the Salt Lake Valley, you had a view of the mountains, the Oquirrh Mountains to the West and the Wasatch Mountains to the east. The valley was cradled by the mountains in a way that had always felt comforting to me. But not anymore. While they were still beautiful, the mountains had become like silent sentinels, keeping everyone trapped in the valley. But the mountains hadn't changed. They were steadfast as always, indifferent to the folly of human drama.

  *****

  The house was perfect. No one was living here. All the curtains and shades were open as if nothing had ever happened, as if everything were still normal. The house had a single lock which would make breaking into the house a piece of cake. I made it a practice to avoid homes with dead bolts or a back door with two locks. And as I traveled through the valley, I was shocked at how many homes there were to choose from. With all the abandoned homes, it was easy to find homes with a single lock. I also made sure to avoid homes with screen doors. Screen doors were squeaky and would likely alert any infected in the area.

  My preference for homes included basements and upstairs. While it was a pain to have to scout out three floors to make sure a home was secure, basements and upstairs held great advantages. The basement was the safest area of the home as long as it had windows to the backyard that were easy to exit from if the need arose, and I found it easy to relax in basements. I could walk around without having to worry about being seen by the infected. As long as I made sure to keep the door to the basement closed and locked if possible, basements made for perfectly safe havens. If there were ever any suspicious noises coming from upstairs, I could always make a hasty retreat out a back window into the relative safety of a backyard. Other than the day at Alex's house when they were about to bust through the fence, I'd yet to run across any infected in a fenced backyard.

  Having an upstairs was important as a lookout in the mornings because I could see further down the street from an upstairs window than I could from a living room picture window. Upstairs windows offered a better angle and a more comprehensive view. If there were a large group of the infected nearby, I'd likely be able to spot them. I avoided large packs of the infected at all costs. If I spotted a big group of infected, I'd alter my route for the day, making sure to stay a few blocks clear of them. The more infected there were, the less chance I had of getting cleanly away. Using my binoculars, I could usually see as far as two blocks down the street.

  I was drifting in and out of a daydream when the air conditioner switched on. It caught me off guard. I collected myself and moved to the back door, making sure the gun was within reach. After my first night out, I'd decided the Glock was the best option in the sometimes tight confines of a home. Even though a gunshot would draw the infected, I could escape out the back door and put plenty of distance between myself and the house.

  I lightly scratched my fingernails against the door panel and waited. If there were any infected inside, they'd likely hear the scratching and be drawn to the source of the noise. After waiting twenty seconds, I scratched at the door a second time. I waited another thirty seconds but didn't hear a thing. Then I began to work my magic with the tension wrench and the rake pick. And as soon as the tension wrench began to inch upwards, I turned it all the way and unlocked the door. I picked up the Glock and turned the knob and pushed the door open.

  I let the door swing open as far as it would go without hitting anything. The kitchen was empty and I didn't hear any noises outside of the persistent hum of the air conditioning. I made sure to leave the back door partially open in case I needed to leave in a hurry. The kitchen was empty and I moved through it into a hallway junction. The living room was straight ahead and there was a hallway to the right. There was a door to my immediate left, likely the garage. I turned to the right with my gun in a firing-ready position, a round already in the chamber. After my first night out, I'd decided to keep a round chambered at all times since chambering rounds could be noisy, and there might be situations where I might not have time to chamber a round. The hallway was clear. There was a thermostat a few feet down the hallway and then a door to the right and another door at the end of the hallway. The first door was open and I kept the Glock pointed in its direction. I changed the thermostat setting to sixty degrees to make sure the air conditioning would stay on while I scouted the house. The constant hum of the air conditioning would help mask the sound of opening doors.

  I kept my back pressed against the opposite wall and moved cautiously down the hallway. The first door was a bathroom. I stepped a little closer to get a better
view, but there was nothing to see. It was empty. I guessed the second door to be a bedroom and I followed the same procedure as I did with the back door. I scratched the door panel and waited. There was only silence. I opened the door and made sure the room was clear. It was a bedroom that had been turned into an office. I went over to the computer desk and opened the two drawers and looked to see if there might be anything useful in them.

  I learned to be a scavenger the first night out. I needed bandages for the cut on my face and found them in a medicine cabinet in a dimly lit bathroom on the main floor. The cut was deeper than I'd anticipated. A horizontal cut about an inch-and-a-half long and the skin was separated wider than I liked. After applying some Neosporin to the wound, I cut the adhesive ends of several band-aids off and used them to help hold the skin of my cheek together. After that, I stuffed the Neosporin and the pack of band-aids in my backpack. And that's what got me started. I'd only taken a few things since, an Arizona Diamonds baseball cap to shade my face from the sun, some nose clips for the occasional awful smell, and an extra fully-loaded magazine for the Glock. That was the real prize. I always felt the requisite guilt for taking something that didn't belong to me. And then I thanked the home's owners quietly for the food and hospice they'd left me. I really didn't think they'd mind.